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What is NomadsLand? It’s a new destination built by nomads - professionals who have spent much of their lives traversing the globe – gathering, recording and sharing in our collective human experience. We are video producers, filmmakers, activists, nonprofit staffers and social entrepreneurs who are joining forces to curate, create and distribute visual media that raises awareness and support of worthwhile international projects and important global issues. As our logo indicates, we are squarely focused on media that addresses issues affecting the “base of the pyramid.”

Here, we believe that online video – or what we refer to as “micro-documentaries” – is how socially responsible organizations and companies will tell their story in the age of Web 3.0. A “micro-documentary” captures the essence of a project and the characters that propel it in a way that a blog or a Tweet simply cannot.

At NomadsLand, we aim to boost the signal and reduce the noise of video found on the Internet. On these pages, we are curating the best social issue video available on the web while creating a community for filmmakers and organizations to partner on original productions.

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DAVIN HUTCHINS, Founder and CEO

Davin Hutchins is a filmmaker, producer and social entrepreneur specializing in news, documentaries and new media with a emphasis on international social issues and online delivery platforms.  In addition to running NomadsLand, he is also the Director of the Independent Digital Distribution Lab at PBS & ITVS, where he strategizes with independent filmmakers, PBS and ITVS about acquiring new audiences through partners like iTunes, Amazon, NetFlix, Roku and Hulu. Hutchins has fifteen years experience in television journalism and has worked with CNN, BBC World, TechTV, Witness, Internews, SnagFilms, the U.S. State Department and The Huffington Post. His assignments and speaking engagements have taken him to Egypt, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Turkey, Kuwait, Jordan, Syria, Oman, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Thailand, Indonesia, Iceland, France, Britain, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands.

In 2008-09, as Managing Producer at American News Project in Washington, D.C (now the Huffington Post Investigative Fund), he produced investigative video reports on immigration, the environment and the 2008 U.S. presidential race which appeared on outlets such as The Huffington Post, Al Jazeera English, CNN and Talking Points Memo. His online video reports have tallied more than two million views and tens of thousands of comments.  Hutchins directed The Art Of Flight, his debut feature documentary which featured at AFI Fest Hollywood, International Documentary Festival Amsterdam and Bangkok International Film Festival. Hutchins spent the first five years of his career at CNN in Atlanta. He holds a Masters of Arts Degree in Middle East Studies from the American University in Cairo and two Bachelors of Arts Degrees in Journalism and History from California State University: Fresno.

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ZACH BERKE, Web Development and Digital Strategist

Zach is a serial entrepreneur who is the CEO and founder of Exygy - a technology firm devoted to building and working with tech startups around the world: from San Francisco to Vermont to Budapest, Kiev and New Delhi. Zach oversees the web development team building NomadsLand and helps devise digital strategies to make the publishing platform better suited for the needs of nonprofits and social enterprises.

A San Francisco native, Zach graduated with High Honors from Dartmouth College with a major in Computational Science where he focused his energy pushing for greater collaboration between the computer science department and the rest of the scientific faculty.  Zach’s intellectual passion lies in area where computation meets large volumes of scientific data: genetics, proteomics, and functional brain imaging.  Zach received awards for his research in computational neuroscience as well as his pioneering work researching and pushing on the limits of large scale WiFi networking.

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HARRY HANBURY, Senior Producer / Editor

Award –winning filmmaker Harry Hanbury produces, shoots, edits, and writes public-interest videos and documentaries.  Most recently as senior producer at the American News Project, he produced pieces including: Capitol Hill Parties All the Time,  Palin’s Apocalypse, and Paulson’s $140 Billion Surprise. His non-profit clients have included Advocates for Youth, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), the Alliance for Justice, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Campaign for America’s Future, the Gamaliel Foundation, Gender PAC, Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), the Local Initiative Support Corporation (LISC), the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Save Darfur Coalition.

In 2000, Harry produced documentary shorts for the Discovery Channel, filming in South Africa, the Bahamas, and Galapagos.  And from 1998 to 2004, he worked with six Hollywood studios to produce dozens of shorts featuring Martin Scorsese, Brad Pitt, Ray Romano, and a long list of other celebrities. Harry’s career started in 1993, after receiving a B.A. in Philosophy and Sociology from New College of Florida, when he took a job as the first full-time researcher hired by Discovery Communications. He subsequently wrote scripts for dozens of science and history documentaries on Discovery and TLC. But since 2000, when he bought a DV camera and laptop editing system, Harry has become more “techie” than he ever dreamed possible.

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GARLAND MCLAURIN, Field Producer / Editor

Garland McLaurin has worked in television and film industry for nearly a decade in the United States and abroad including shooting in Cuba and South Africa. In South Africa and at Howard University he taught college level video shooting and editing courses to students eager to learn the film-making process. After returning to the United States from this life-changing experience, he began producing short form documentaries on various social topics. He has come to realize the critical importance of socially progressive media and has now dedicated himself to produce work that has positive relevance to the daily needs of our society.

As producer and editor he has created over 200 short form documentaries and news stories in the last three years and was recently nominated for a Telly Award. Whether working on the Emmy-award winning TV One series “Murder In Black and White” or producing online content for American News Project, Garland has developed a diverse body of production experience. Garland’s work has been featured on American News Project, Verizon Fios 1, National Geographic, TV One and Retirement Living Channel. He holds a B.A. in Radio-TV-Film from Howard University and studied at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in the M.F.A. film program. Currently, he is working on a half-hour documentary around sports and politics.

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RUFUS LUSK, Field Producer / Editor

Rufus is an artist, filmmaker and adventurer with a passion for understanding the complex relationships between people and the environments they inhabit and affect. Since moving from NY to Washington, DC this fall, Rufus has worked as a videographer for Greenpeace, video producer for the mentoring and education foundation The Dominican DREAM Project, and Design and Media Advisor for OpenRevolution, a mobile commerce provider working in emerging markets to expand financial access through partnerships with NGOs, such as Mercy Corps, Banks and Mobile Network Operators. In New York, Rufus worked for the influential art gallery PaceWildenstein and on video and film productions for Nickelodeon, CBS/FoodNetwork, and Marc Ecko among others.

As a fine artist, Rufus has organized well-received NY shows, received commissions from contemporary art programs in both the US and Canada, and in 2009 was a fellow at the Vermont Studio Center. Much of Rufus’ art focuses on the Internet as a consumer-ready environment and clickable resource that disturbs the relationship between travel and exploration.

In addition to his professional pursuits, Rufus is an avid rock and alpine climber. While completing his BA from Dartmouth College, he established a new route on New Hampshire’s Canon Cliff, “Castles Burning.” He has been documented in both the American Alpine Journal and Climbing.com for his climbing feats, and has spent significant time climbing in both the Andean and European Alps.

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DYANA KLEIN, Marketing Strategist

Based in the heart of Silicon Valley, Dyana Klein is the Principal of New Marketing Factory, Inc, a hybrid marketing agency, combining traditional marketing techniques with innovative applications, websites and technologies.  After more than a decade helping build brands and marketing partnerships with companies such as eBay, Visa, American Express, MLS, MP3.com, MySpace and Dell, Dyana decided to venture out on her own, in an environment where she could impact change and help develop and execute marketing programs for organizations she believed in.

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ANDREW SATTER, Editor / Film Screenings Coordinator

Andrew Satter is an award-winning videojournalist living in Washington, DC. He has covered issues of both international and domestic importance, including illegal immigration issues from both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, growth and development in the American Southwest, the 2008 Election and the U.S. Congress. He was the videographer and online producer for the investigative reporting series “Sealing Our Border: Why it Won’t Work”, and produced the mini documentary “And the Smokestacks Came Tumbling Down: The Legacy of San Manuel”

Satter is currently the online video producer for Congressional Quarterly’s free politics site,CQPolitics.com. Previously, he worked for the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson, the English-language Prague Post, the Bend, Ore., Bulletin, and served as a production intern for Kurtis Productions in Chicago for the A&E show “Cold Case Files.” Satter has a Bachelor’s of Arts degree in English Literature from Washington University in St. Louis, and holds a master’s degree in New Media Journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Upon graduation in March 2004 he was presented with the Harrington Award for journalistic promise and high scholastic achievement in new media, Medill’s highest accolade.

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MIKE FRITZ Community Coordinator, Americas

Mike Fritz is a journalist based in Washington D.C. who currently works for the Online News Hour with Jim Lehrer. Mike worked with Davin Hutchins as an online video producer at the American News Project, covering many events including the Democratic National Convention in Denver during 2008. Prior to that he worked for the Associated Press as a political researcher for NBC’s Today Show and a production assistant for Tom Brokaw’s documentary “The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate’s Deep Throat.” Fritz has also spent time in print as a general assignment reporter for the Daily Nebraskan and a contributing editor of the Spokane Sidekick Magazine. He graduated with a degree in Broadcast Journalism and Communications from the University of Nebraska in 2005.

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PAVLA FLEISCHER Community Coordinator, Europe

In terms of filmmaking,  Pavla started off by using her language abilities in working on the production side of things in film service companies in Prague. She soon realized that her passion is in sharing real life stories, rather than fiction. She filmed and co-directed the award-winning Blues by the Beach, which charted her and her then boyfriends’ experience of a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. A year after, Pavla met and became besotted with the joi-de-vivre spirit of Eugene Hutz, the lead singer of Gogol Bordello, with whom she shared a passion for Gypsy music. She raised the money to bring the two passions together and invite Eugene on a musical trip to his native Ukraine and also Russia. She documented its ups and downs in the commercially successful and internationally acclaimed Pied Piper of Hutzovina. She spent the next year and half enjoying the film’s success and traveling with it to festivals. Pavla is now living in Tuscan hills, and trying to combine her dream to live a simple life in Italian countryside with her love of filmmaking.

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MICHAEL CHAN, Marketing and Events, Busboys and Poets

Part of the Marketing & Events team for the popular DC-based Busboys and Poets, a social justice and peace-focused eatery, Michael Chan is producer of “Focus-In! Cinema for a Conscious Community,” Busboys’ very own film series. “Focus-In!” screens important films by local, national, and international filmmakers. Each segment offers a focus dedicated to social justice, peace, and community value. Busboys and Poets’ partnership with NomadsLand allows the opportunity to witness the power of filmmaking in light of social issues, something both organizations support greatly.

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MICHAEL HOFFMAN, See3 Communications

Michael Hoffman, CEO, is a leading authority in online video for nonprofits and a long-time consultant to nonprofit leaders on online fundraising and outreach strategies. He started his career as a political consultant and Washington-based nonprofit fundraiser before joining a venture investment firm to develop internet start-ups. Post-bubble, Hoffman founded See3 to bring together his belief in the power of the web and his passion and experience with nonprofit fundraising, advocacy, and education. He is a frequent blogger and tweeter on nonprofit marketing and is a nationally sought-after speaker on topics such as online cause marketing, web video, and Web 2.0 for social change.

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If you need us to reach us, please visit our Contact Page.